Bradley Wiggins powers along on a police-escorted recce of the time trial course for the London 2012 Olympics. Photograph: Getty Images

The past 12 months have been a voyage of discovery and history-making for Bradley Wiggins, and Wednesday's 44 kilometres around Hampton Court could set the seal on it. A year ago, he was holed up in his garden shed in Lancashire riding on a turbo trainer as he recovered from the fractured collarbone he sustained at the Tour de France. Since then, his has been a tale of constant progress: third in the Tour of Spain, the silver medal at the world time trial championship, victories in the Paris-Nice, Tour of Romandie and Critérium du Dauphiné, and finally the triumphant three weeks in France.

He has gone, in that time, from being the subject of animated discussion among the cycling cognoscenti to a household name from Buckingham Palace to village shops in obscure corners of the British countryside. Having rung the bell to start the Olympic opening ceremony, he could now sound the starting gun for a run of British cycling medals at the velodrome, where Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, Laura Trott and company strut their stuff from Thursday onwards. A medal on Wednesday, of any colour, would put him in a class of his own as Britain's most-decorated Olympian, although Hoy is on his heels as the track action looms.

In the past 12 months, Wiggins has experienced something athletes enjoy only at the very height of their powers: the ability to deliver their best whenever they want to, time and again. In every event on the hit list – Vuelta a España, world time trial, Nice, Romandie, Dauphiné and Tour – the opposition has been put away.

There have been internal doubts along the way, as he is a man who questions himself even when it all looks ticketey-boo to the outsider, but in performance terms it has been a seamless run: no illness, no injury, no crashes. A cold in the spring, a derailed chain in the time trial at the Tour of Romandie have been the only visible glitches.

None of the other contenders on Wednesday can say as much. The title holder Fabian Cancellara, so often Wiggins's nemesis in the past, was a doubt until Tuesday following his heavy crash in the road race on Saturday. Tony Martin, the defending world champion, pulled out of the road race to save his strength, and appears still to be recovering from the fractured wrist that wrecked his Tour de France.

If there are two men who could surprise Wiggins, one is his Great Britain team-mate Chris Froome – runner-up to him in both time trials in the Tour de France – and the other is the young American Taylor Phinney. Given the form Froome and Wiggins showed in the Tour, two British medals may come from this one event.

Unless external factors come into play – a freak change in weather conditions, a crash or a puncture – time trialling tends to be an implacably mathematical exercise in which the favourite usually wins. Wiggins has won every long contre-la-montre he has started this season, although on occasions – Paris Nice and the time trial stage of the Tour of the Algarve – by a narrow margin.

The pattern of his season has been that early on, he did not open large gaps: as the season progressed into the Dauphiné and Tour, the margins became more substantial. In the final time trial at the Tour de France 10 days ago he was at the top of his game. He will be the favourite, but he has enjoyed that status so many times this season, to no ill-effect, that it is hardly likely to put him off.

As courses go, the 44km for the men, 29km for the women, starting and finishing from Hampton Court, is a test of pure horsepower, with few corners to test bikehandling and only a few drags to break the rhythm. The core of the course is a loop from Hampton Court to Cobham, covered by both men and women, while the men's greater distance is provided by loops, one west, one north, both alongside the great meanders of the Thames.

The women's race is harder to read, because the top women meet on fewer occasions, but Great Britain's Emma Pooley is one of a number in contention for a medal. She was not optimistic about the flat nature of the course when it was first announced – although when asked to assess her chances in any race she tends more to the Eeyore than the Tigger – and told the Guardian, tongue in cheek, that she would have to go on a diet of cheese and chocolate to acquire the necessary bulk to compete with the bigger riders.

Having made her international breakthrough with a surprise silver medal on a course that suited pure climbers near the Great Wall of China at the Beijing Games, Pooley won gold in the 2010 world championship at Geelong, Australia, and backed that up with bronze last year in Copenhagen. The caveat is that the route in Geelong was surprisingly tough and the circuit in Copenhagen, while pancake flat, included a succession of corners, which favour Pooley because her light weight means she can accelerate back to race speed more quickly than the bigger riders.

While the world champion, Judith Arndt, will start as favourite, Pooley is clearly on form, as her constantly strong riding in Sunday's road race showed. Recently, she said, "I know I'm a lot better than I was four years ago but it doesn't necessarily mean I'll do better or even get a medal. I'm not saying I'm confident, but I've got a good shot."

As for her team-mate Lizzie Armitstead, time trialling is not her discipline of choice, but whatever she achieves today she has contributed massively to these Games by producing the first British medal, though it is the men who are the favourites to follow through.